85 Years of '' Alam Ara '' - India's first talkie film '' Alam Ara '' released on March 14,1931

When the first talkie - Ardeshir Irani's 'Alam Ara' came out on March 14 1931, India was already familiar with the concept of feature films

When ‘Alam Ara’ was released in Mumbai's Majestic Cinema, police had to be called for crowd control. The film, not only broke the dominance of silent films, which were being made till then, but it also introduced the concept of music and playback in Indian cinema- something that continues to be the highlight of Indian films till date

The film had lot of firsts in it.

It was the first talkie to be made and release in India.

It introduced the concept of music, it also gave India its first playback singer in the form of Wazir Mohammed Khan, who also acted in the film along with actors Master Vithal, Zubeida, J.Sushila and Prithviraj Kapoor.

But while ‘Alam Ara’ was the first talkie to be released, there were several other filmmakers who were at the same time making talkies in regional languages.

 While 'Alam Ara' released in March 1931, Madan Theatre's 'Jamai Shashti' released in April the same year and became the first Bengali talkie.

Talkies also heralded an era of new kind of stories. The silent era mostly fell back upon mythology for scripts, but talkies experimented with new ideas, some folklore, some fairytales, love stories and social themes